Christ.

Yes, I know I don’t believe but there’s still something satisfying in the old curses.

I had three hours sleep, hitting the pillow about five thirty. I’ve written a piece about last night which should appear today. I’ll hopefully have more to say about it in the coming days. Real life is crowding for my attention today and I wanted to write about that. I will say that I worry that Trump is going to win this by a tiny margin, and I don’t know what that will do to America. I have American friends who were genuinely frightened last night. Another win in the popular vote but the minority ruling the country – the abortion issue makes me despair… It feels like something is going to break in America.

I have no idea what happened. Voter suppression? Mail fraud? Something doesn’t smell right but that might just be the smell of that other America that we don’t notice when we’re celebrating all the great things about the U.S.A. Fear and a strong-man personality cult are a potent brew. Not sure how many times we need to have this lesson before optimistic fools like myself learn.

But back to real life.

They’re talking of sending my Mum home, but her confusion is still really worrying. However, talking to somebody today about her condition, I was struck by the realisation that it might not be confusion. It’s beginning to sound more like the delirium she suffers when she has a UTI and, as my sister pointed out, my Mum got worse after her course of antibiotics ended about eleven days ago.

This is now my problem. I keep mentioning this to doctors who refuse to acknowledge it could be a water infection. Some talk about using dip-sticks, even though enough medical papers have been written proving that dip sticks don’t work for somebody over 65 and for people younger they are only accurate 30% of the time. Other doctors talk about the lab culture test which are only accurate 50% of the time.

I can’t argue against doctors. They put up their shields. “It would be medical malpractice to prescribe blindly” one told me the other day, though that’s exactly what they did in the other hospital when my mum had this and repeated tests came back negative. Perhaps it is wrong. What do I know? I just know she’s been like this in the past and the standard UTI antibiotic has brought her back to her senses.

I’m lost and have no idea what to do. How can I contradict doctors? How can the hospital be wrong and me right? This is a fucking awful situation I’m in and I haven’t really got into the reality of what’s happening. I’m at the point where I suddenly realised the other day that I could lose the house over my head and so could my sister – the house we’ve lived in our entire lives… It means I have to now step up and prove myself more capable as a carer. This shit has got serious. Life is about to get so much harder.

This morning I noticed a couple of people on Twitter tweeting me today because they are amused that I might have been wrong about Trump. That’s the least of my problems. What’s scary is that I’m not even depressed. The Trump news hasn’t hugely affected me because I was already numb. If feels like my life has gone from something to nothing in the space of a few days. I’m really scared of meeting the person I’ll be collecting from the hospital. I’m frightened that I might not be able to cope.

6 thoughts on “Numb”

  1. I think on balance you should think of your mam coming home as a good thing. Covid is now spreading in hospitals to in-patients, apparently 20% of cases have been caught in hospital. So really, the sooner she is home the better, providing the doctors feel it is safe to discharge her. I understand where you are coming from about the doctors, but it is probably worth remembering, you have seen one Mrs Waywell, they will have seen thousands. The balance of probability is that they are right and you are wrong. If that isn’t the case, and we all know doctors make mistakes, there is still precious little you can do about it. So it is probably best to just go along with what they say and try to get as much support from them as possible. That will be easier if you don’t antagonise them. They don’t like being contradicted by people without medical degrees and experience of practising medicine, which I suppose is understandable. I really don’t mean any of that to sound harsh, honestly I don’t, just sometimes you have to accept you can’t do anything about a situation you find yourself landed in, thinking you can just makes it harder. Best of luck anyway!

    1. Appreciate that, Rob. Yes, getting her home will be best.

      Not going to repeat what I wrote. I know we might be wrong but on two occasions we’ve been in this exact same position but the UTI was treated and the confusion disappeared. The only problem now is that I can’t visit and ensure they’re dealing with her symptoms. The problem with the NHS is there’s no continuity of care. I’ve had to explain the same thing to three different doctors over five days.

      1. Not that this is of any consequence in the light of what is going on, but there is a decent chance you will have the last laugh on the people trolling you over Trump. While there is a chance he may win, there is also every possibility that Joe Biden could end up with 306 votes, which in my book is winning big.

    1. Hi Rob. Sorry for the lack of updates. Honestly, I physically and emotionally crashed the past couple of days. Can’t stop sleeping.

      The news is that mum seemed a little better but I think the docs are increasingly looking an water infection. Problem is, they still seem insistent on getting a culture. I spoke to a consultant urologist (privately) the other night and after explaining the situation he was positive it’s a UTI (as I’ve been insisting). He’s given me plenty of advice and I’m going to speak to the doctors tomorrow and see if I can get her seen by a urologist and have an ultrasound. She’s had this twice before and I know the antibiotics work and clear the delirium. Just frustrating that it’s taking them so long to recognise this but, again, it’s a problem with the lack of continuity of care. Every time I ring, I speak to somebody different and have to start from square one again.

      1. Don’t be sorry, just hoped everything was ok. As always, good luck (even if you don’t believe in it, cos I certainly do).

Leave a Reply to Rob Walker Cancel reply

Why Dunciad.com?

It’s a cool domain name and it was available. Yes, I know. Available. Crazy, isn’t it?

Really?

Yes. It also helps that it’s also my favourite satire written by Alexander Pope, one of the most metrically pure English poets who also knew his way around a crude insult or two. If you’ve not read it, you should give it a try.

So this is satire, right?

Can’t deny it. There will be some. But it’s also an experiment in writing and drawing, giving work away for free in order to see how many people are willing to support a writer doing his thing. It’s the weird stuff that I wouldn’t get published elsewhere in this word of diminishing demands and cookie-cutter tastes.